QUINCY – City officials say they have reached agreements with six of the nine homeowners in North Quincy whose houses the city wants to demolish to make way for an expanded parking lot and sports field.

Quincy’s solicitor, James Timmins, would not disclose how much the city will pay for any of the six houses. Making the price tags public would hamper negotiations with the remaining three homeowners on Hunt Street and Newbury Avenue, he said.

“With two of them, there are a couple little issues, but they don’t mean we can’t reach an agreement,” Timmins said Wednesday. “Other than that, things have gone pretty well and continue to go pretty well.”

Negotiations with one of the homeowners have not begun.

“That process will hopefully get underway soon,” said Timmins, who had hoped to have all the properties under agreement this summer and for homeowners to begin vacating their properties this month.

If any of the homeowners refuse to sell their properties to the city, Mayor Thomas Koch would have to decide if he wants to ask the city council to approve an eminent domain taking through lawsuits and court trials, a move that could face some resistance by councilors.

In June, Koch said he considered eminent domain an option if negotiations with any of the homeowners failed.

Koch and other city leaders have stressed that they want to acquire the nine homes though “friendly taking,” but in June some homeowners reacted to the city’s actions with a mix of anger and worry.

“I think it’s more like friendly fire,” Roland Cote told the Ledger in June. Cote and his family have lived at 26 Hunt St. for more than four decades.

Five of the nine homeowners whose properties are targeted by the city are Asian, from China and Vietnam. And many of the residents on the quiet side street are working-class with jobs in retail, food service and the building trades.

May Che Lai, who lives with her husband and teenage daughter in a Hunt Street duplex the couple bought in 1988, said in June that she doesn’t want to uproot from the neighborhood and wondered how she could buy another home with the same qualities.

Two months ago, city councilors approved a $12 million bond for a project that calls for acquiring the nine homes in North Quincy and then tearing them down to make room for a new synthetic-turf playing surface at Teel Field and a 160-space parking lot behind the North Quincy High School building.

The project sits on a small wetland and includes a plan to mitigate chronic flooding in the area through drainage and ponds. That portion of the project has to win approval from the city’s conservation commission, which meets Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. to consider how the project will affect wetlands.

Page 2 of 2 - An application to the commission was prepared by Lucas Environmental, a land development company in Quincy, which stated that the wetlands are not a habitat for any rare wildlife species or vernal pools subject to special state regulations.

Timmins said he expects the conservation commission to approve the project.